The Wright Sister: A Novel
“Sometimes, I think I was born in the wrong body,” Katharine Wright muses in Patty Dann’s (Mermaids) new novel. Indeed, Katharine— “with an ‘a,’” she likes to point out, yearning to be recognized for some trait of her own—is forever destined, it seems, to be known as the “other” Wright. Her brothers get the fame although she worked side-by-by side with “Orv” and “Will” to invent the airplane and may have had the idea that made it possible. But, although a feminist, she would never steal her brothers’ thunder.
Besides, Katharine is busy with her new husband, a newsman who married her when she was fifty-three and a “spinster” whom no one had thought would marry, least of all Orv, for whom she has cared for years. When Katherine marries Harry, Orv cuts her out of his life. Her letters to him along with her entries in her “marriage diary” fill the pages of this book with angst over the loss of her brother as well as her delight at the carnal passion she has discovered for the first time with Harry.
The Wright Sister shines when detailing Katharine’s midlife discovery of her own sensuality, “burgeoning,” she writes, exulting over the word, even as she struggles with Harry’s continued devotion to his dead wife. But just as her obsession with “Orv” grates on Harry, I found it tedious. Katharine Wright may not have been strong enough to stand up for herself, but I do wish the author had stood up more for her.
